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Owen Jones recently wrote an article telling us that as Corbyn supporters there were some key questions we had to answer. Well, I think there are some questions that Owen Smith supporters must answer, they are as follows:

1. How can the disastrous perception of Tory Lite (New) Labour be turned around?2. Where is the clear vision that will separate us from the Tories?

3. How are the policies significantly different from Corbyn’s?

4. What’s the new media strategy?

5. What’s the strategy to win back the youth vote?

6. What’s the strategy to win over a left wing Scotland?

7. What’s the strategy to win disaffected Labour voters?

8. How would we deal with rising hate crime and xenophobia if we return to pandering to the right wing rhetoric around immigration?

9. What is Owen Smith’s plan to hold onto the huge membership gains made under Corbyn?

10. How can Smith be trusted to deliver on his word when he has betrayed the party leader, and has openly went back on his word numerous times?

11. How are the actions of Smith favourable to Labour’s electoral chances considering its impact on the polls?

12. How will Smith command the support of the Trade Unions and the six million members they represent, after effectively waging war on them?

What is happening within the Labour party is much bigger than Corbyn, it’s much bigger than the Labour Party. Within Labour we are witnessing a break down of the Thatcherite consensus which has dominated the Labour party since the days of Blair and New Labour, alongside this we are witnessing a backlash against Neoliberal ideology and Thatcherism in wider society. Corbyn is the figurehead, or the representative of this change and his opponents in and outside the Labour party believe the maxim “cut the head of the snake” but the paradigm shift that is occurring cannot be stopped so easily.

When Thatcher got elected, many said she couldn’t do it, when she became PM, people didn’t believe it. Yet since then, we have seen a huge shift in the political consensus to the right, in fact the One Nation Tory ideology that Thatcher effectively destroyed became irrelevant. She managed to shift our politics so far to the right that people even buy the lie that left wing politics can never win an election (if you repeat a lie often enough…). This has been the generally accepted view since the eighties, coincidently there was a huge back lash against this shift to the right, sadly ending in the defeat for the left. The war however is far from over, and we are now witnessing a realignment, politics much like a pendulum is swinging back the way it came.

The establishment political, media and business have joined together in an evil triumvirate of ideological power to try and preserve the system that has enriched them, or as Chomsky puts to “manufacture consent”. They do not want the change that is coming, hence their alliance in shutting Corbyn down. They are going with the old narrative that left is unelectable, they are fighting back to protect neoliberal ideology. The power of Thatcherism is waning, and the confidence of the public in the establishment is breaking down. The media is losing its power to the internet, and the rising tide in anti-establishment sentiment because of the banking crisis, the expenses scandal, cash for questions, corrupt tax dodging business practices, all of these have crept up on neoliberalism, slowly but surely eroding peoples confidence in business as usual, in the generally held paradigm espoused by the establishment.

In a post Blair world the Blairites have become the dinosaurs, they have become the fossils, an insult so readily dished out at socialists and the like for just not “modernising.” In a scandal ridden world, where the new norm has become corruption, in a world after the expenses scandal, the bankers crash of 2008, and the ever widening income gap, their ideas and arguments seem alien to our generation. We are the products of the failure of neoliberal ideology, and we are open to something else, we haven’t lived in a world where socialism, or left wing politics has been in the mainstream.

It has been over thirty years since a left wing alternative was put to the electorate, in fact since the Thatcher years we have had an unbroken line of Thatcherism, Neoliberalism at the heart of our government it festering like a poison at the heart of our politics. Many people alive today myself included have never been presented with typical left wing arguments, they have become the ‘new’, they have become fresh, because neoliberal has become stale, and we have not been offered a credible choice for decades. This isn’t just happening here in the UK, it is happening all over the west, look at Sanders in America, and the agents of neoliberalism are becoming ever more desperate and dangerous, because it is happening on the flip side too, look at Trump and Farage.

People are crying out for change, we have had the occupy movement, we have had waves of protests, and unrest around this country and the wider world, the political landscape has shifted vastly, the rise of the SNP, the shadow of UKIP and Brexit. In a world where so much has changed since the Blair years, how can people think “business as usual” can win the day? This belief completely flies in the face of the problems the Labour party was facing prior to Corbyn becoming leader, it completely removes the party from its recent history and the context of where it finds it self.

Thus the ideological war which many believed to be over, the end of history, the fall of the Berlin Wall, has come out of no where to frighten the establishment inside and outside the Labour party. They have completely and utterly closed ranks in order to conserve the ideological consensus they have worked at over the last thirty years. If a left wing leader does win a general election, the narratives they have built up to protect neoliberal ideology will come crashing down. They lose justification for their arguments, and it is they who will be pushed into retreat. We are witnessing the desperate lashing out of its advocates, whether they are being directly pushed by their ideology or on a more subconscious level, because they are in a fight for their survival. If they lose within the Labour Party, an opposing ideology will start being presented in the chamber, if they lose a GE, a new ideology will start drafting policy.

While the Labour party is the main focus of this war of ideas, it is only one battlefield, and on a wider level what happened with Corbyn’s election is just a wider indicator of the paradigm shift which is happening to the wider public. So even if Corbyn is toppled, even if they put a neoliberal business as usual stooge in, they cannot stop the march of history, it has become too big now. So whether it happens inside or outside the Labour party, a big change is coming, and it is one that is going to realign our politics. We can either ride that wave and fight to create the kind of world we want to see, or we can get dragged along by it.

This week we have heard how Sally Keeble turned down a nice little one thousand pound gift from ex-pm Tony Blair, though not the only one to turn down the money, we would be fooling ourselves if we thought this had anything to do with a principled stance of the ex-pm.

Her Blairite credentials go even deeper than this, when she started throwing punches at the new PM Gordon Brown, sticking the knife into him only 18 months after he became PM. As we now know there was a legendary feud between Blair and Brown, so it doesn’t take genius to work out which side of the fence she sat on.

Sally voted for the war in Iraq, so it makes no sense for her turning the money down over that, so what other reasons does she have for saying no? Maybe, a political stunt in order to try and distance herself from a government she was in bed with.

It would be unfair of me to not say why Sally Keeble herself told us she turned down the money, it was because:“I actually believe that British Politics, and particularly at election time, should be funded very clearly by British money.”

Her refusal then serves two purposes, it is a rather obvious attempt to distance herself from brand Blair, and a more subtle attempt to appear nationalistic to try and poach some UKIP voters.

So there you have it according to Sally, British elections need to be fought with “British money”, we can assume she only wants British people being members of the Labour party in Northampton, not to mention the Trade Unions, hopefully she will vote against and fight against any donations from multinational corporations to the Labour party (like hell she will).

This is far from being some kind of grand gesture or some kind of principled stance, Tony Blair could keep his money because Sally already has his principles. Hopefully the people of Northampton won’t be fooled by this shameful and spineless ploy, Sally was at the time and still is a shameless Blairite.

Left Unity a party that was built with internal democracy in mind, with yearly elections a prominent feature of how we hold the party to account. We operate a one member, one vote system, where ideally members are free agents to choose who they want representing them.

How turned off I have been then to see key groups within LU (no groups are recognised as a subset of LU, so these operate within LU unofficially) releasing list after list of who their members should vote for. It makes a mockery of our democracy, and is completely alien to the principals LU is trying to further within the workers movement, and the wider community.

The kind of politics I’ve started to witness forming around and within Left Unity this past year, is exactly what I joined LU to get away from. It was a breath of fresh air away from the sectarian ramblings of madmen, cultist despots and thought police.

It will be a sad day for LU, for the left and also the masses of working people that have been alienated by the left if anyone of these outside factions assumes control through majority representation on the NC, as we already know they vote the same, free debate and thought within the party would be finished, and as a result the party would be finished also.

Vote however YOU want, vote for what YOU believe yourself, vote for what YOU believe in – I don’t know kind of left politics you’re trying to build or be part of, but I’ll tell you what we don’t want, uniformity of thought, uniformity of process, – centralised control over how we should act. We joined LU to get away from these failed past models of thought control, and alienation.

Down with this democratic deficit, this undemocratic beast we have nurtured within the party and allowed to grow unchallenged, enough with this shit! Normal people unaffiliated to any of these vultures, without some kind of sectarian loyalty to this brand of socialism or the next, are going to be left behind, they’re already being pushed out.

What is socialism? What is the workers movement, what does it mean to be involved with left politics? What does it mean to you to be a member of the working class? I don’t need to look to someone for the answer, I don’t need to report to someone for “suggestions” – neither do I need to think about it, because I feel it in my gut, it is in my heart.

Some of these positions are representative, and I find it extremely difficult to understand how someone can truly represent sections of the party, if they being forced (coerced/softpower) to vote in a way which has no direct link to the people they are representing.

This is a problem that Left Unity needs to face up to and address, otherwise democracy within the party is a mockery, a thinly veiled facade and LU will fall even quicker into the abyss of failure, a train wreck and a failed experiment. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that to happen.

How angry we would of all been if the current EC or NC released a list telling people who they should vote for, what kind of party do we want to be involved with? Like the Grand Old Duke of York marching his men up and down the hill, how long are we going to be stuck doing the same things over and over again? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Lets face it the left has been a sinking ship for a long time now, with groups diminishing in size and capability, we can either bury our head in the sand and think everything is peachy fucking creamy, or we can look at ourselves, because we can spruce it up with fancy words and theories as to why the left is weakening, ultimately we are to blame for it, groups are to blame for it. We either change, adapt, advance and grow, or we are dead, and we have lost.

The most positive forces which have come to the fore in recent years haven’t come from the traditionally walked path, like the FocusE15 Mothers, there is a lot of hope and new ideas circulating not only in the UK but in the world, so lets end this stale politics of the past, it is time for a new kind of politics.

The path to unity is not paved with swords, the road to socialism is built upon the cooperation and friendship of the people.

Northampton Borough Council has shown complete and utter contempt for the chamber, the position and most importantly the people of Northampton, as they spend their last full meeting before the elections patting themselves on the back and electioneering.

They seem to have forgotten the problems facing the administration, and will face up until the time of the election, they seem to have completely forgotten that their position is to represent the people that elected them.

I wish I could say this kind of behaviour shocked me, surprised me even but time and again they have ignored the concerns of residents, time and again they have ignored our views and warnings, and time and again they have put their own interests ahead of the people of Northampton.

Lets not forget how the Chron have played into the egoist fantasies of the council leader Mr.Mackintosh without a week going by when his face isn’t offending my computer screen. I could write endlessly listing the failures of this council, but everyone living in the town is already well aware of them.

They seem to be living in a different town to you and I, for among their many glowing achievements (which the council recognised) were the Northgate bus station, which has been a complete and utter disaster, causing untold amount of traffic delays, let alone the distress it has caused bus users and the general public.

Mary Markham even goes on to congratulate them all on how well they have done at combatting homelessness, even though figures released suggest homelessness has increased year on year during their control of the council.

The only shocking thing from the whole night is that the Labour group walked out in protest, finally an opposition – shame they are only four years too late. It would have been great if they had shown this kind of passion while we have had to put up this this lot.

[each week I will pick a local news story and cover it with my own opinion, the news article this blog is in relation to can be found here: http://goo.gl/QR8kbq ]

A campaign recently launched in Northampton called “Kill with Kindness” (yes that is its real name), has the aim of encouraging people not to be kind to homeless people.

It declares that homeless people are drunks and drug addicts and by giving them money you are therefore feeding their habits and killing them.

It declares that you should instead give your money to charity which has already been butchered in this county, maybe its time the council supported its services properly, so we didn’t have to prop them up!

This campaign is dehumanising, demonising and degrading and feeds into the myth that homeless people are to blame for their situation.

Not all homeless people are drunks, and not all of them are drug addicts and any campaign which starts off with this assumption is very insulting and damaging.

Instead of attacking the powerless, vulnerable and poor, they should run a campaign that tackles the root causes. Why not have a campaign called “help the homeless” or “home the homeless” – why run a campaign that sends the message that homeless are undeserving of kindness?

This campaign takes place within a backdrop of our county council butchering its services, meaning more adults are going to be vulnerable, and ultimately thrown on the scrapheap.

When are they going to tackle the underlying problems and come up with proper solutions to these problems? Homelessness, addiction – they take away our support network and then have the cheek to say we’re less than human (not worthy of kindness).

Social housing programs are few and far between not only in Northampton but the whole country, social enterprises and charities have had their funding cut and removed by local government, meaning less services and support for the homeless.

Homeless people are wait for it – people too. If a homeless person spends a couple of quid on alcohol, then who are we stop them? Would it be better if they drunk a bottle of wine a day?

What are the underlying causes of homelessness addiction? I don’t think the cause of these problems are created by the kindness of strangers, or by homeless people getting a few quid begging.

More than likely the causes of these problems relate to where they find themselves I.e on the streets, mental health related, there are a myriad of reasons why a homeless person may drink but one thing we can be certain of it definitely isn’t kindness that is killing them.

Left Unity’s internal elections are fast approaching, the yearly elections we have to stop the kind of cult worship, and long standing power-grabs that can and have existed in the past. I would encourage everyone to get actively involved, the more new people we can get standing for positions the better, but not only do we need to encourage those who are new to politics to get engaged, we need to support them – politics and especially the left can be quite a scary place.

While the officers have done some great things this past year, building a party is no easy task, there have been mistakes made, and there have been allegations thrown around. Words all too familiar to anyone that has been on the left for more than a day, undemocratic, Stalinist, conspiracies, you know how the list goes on and on.

I can’t help but think this is part of the internalised culture that exists within the left, a kind of internal paranoia, scepticism, and cynicism. Where every mistake is seen as an intentional act of power hungry megalomania, or when a certain decision doesn’t happen in the way we want it to, rather than the fault be within incompetence or political difference, it is calculated political manoeuvrings or subverting the will of the party.

I won’t be going into detail about each and every issue or allegation that has been hurled around this past year, instead I think all of us need to have a steadfast resolve in improving the parties infrastructure, to improving our internal democracy, transparency and accountability.

Some have abandoned Left Unity and wrote it off as a failure, which to me seems a bit short sighted when we haven’t even had our second election. The party is still being built, have we done everything right this past year? No. Are we a perfect organisation? No. The important thing is however, we can shape Left Unity, it is up to us what kind of party we are involved in.

Once the dust of the election settles there are definitely things that need to be looked at and improved, we need to look at how the party operates, how we communicate with one another, how we formulate policy and ultimately how we improve on the foundations and principles we were founded on.

The party system of old is dead, it doesn’t belong in the 21st century, it isn’t suited to the internet age, and we need to be looking at how the internal workings of Left Unity can be upgraded and incorporated so that every single member has the maximum amount of power.

The constitution was a start but that was it, a start, it wasn’t the end it was the beginning. We are not doing this in a vacuum, we can build on what has come before, we can look to how Syriza and how Podemos operate. I however don’t want to build a party like Podemos or like Syriza, I want to build a party like Left Unity, one that we can call our own.

So how do we do this? Left Unity needs to adopt direct democracy internally in the realms of decision making, I’ve already wrote a small piece on how we can improve conferences which will have a knock on effect. We need to be as open as we possibly can about as much as we can, we have nothing to hide and nothing to fear.

We really need to rip up the rule book of organisation, and try out radical new ways out engaging members, supporters and non-members alike. In the meantime however and of a matter of urgency we need to improve communication, when there is a lack of communication, people who make allegations have free reign on opinion, and in the age of the internet that means they can influence others, as information spreads so quickly now.

Members area of the websites needs to be improved to accommodate more information, as well as a way for members to interact with one another, at the moment the main area of communication across the whole of Left Unity nationally is an unofficial Facebook group, which had to get shut down once already, it is ridiculous.

Left Unity needs to step up to the plate and embrace the internet, just running with the website idea each member could have their own profile, there can be some form of internal message board where we can communicate with one another, there can be an official statement one for Left Unity to keep everyone up to date with what is going on, with disputes, problems, etc.

Mass Skype meetings? Email? Forums? Apps? Polls? There is literally an untold amount of ways we can communicate with one another and keep each other informed, there is no excuse in this day and age – we are not living in the dark ages.

The very structure of how Left Unity operates could easily fall into the trap of alienation of its core supporter by making them feel powerless and disengaged with the whole creative and informative process. Branches have a lot of power, but they are not being supported enough. How many effective and operational branches do we have? What steps are we taking to improve upon these?

The majority of the problems I alluded to earlier were directly caused because a lack of communication, so lets go back to the constitution and see how we can be more transparent, lets go back to the spirit of 45 and lets see what we can do to improve the party we founded, and that we are building here. The future is ours, we only need to grab it!